( cheers and applause ) >> jon: that's our show. join us tomorrow night at 11:00. here it is your moment of zen. captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by test. >> stephen: tonight, is there too much money in politics? nope. then everyone's talking about the news corp. phone hacking scandal. i foe because i checked their voice-mails. and my guest john prendergast is here to talk about the two-week old nation of south sudan. i will ask how long till it loses that new country smell. congratulations to the

japanese's women soccer team for rescuing america from the brink of caring about soccer. this is "the colbert report." captioning sponsored by comedy central ( theme song playing ) (cheers and applause) (cheers and applause) >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you very much! welcome to the report. thank you so much. good to you have with us. nation, you know i love a

summer blockbuster weekend. i took the kids, brought our own snacks, quick tip, don't let the theatres gouge you on popcorn. do what i do. fill your pockets with unpopped colonels and a dozen cheap cell phones. now folks like the rest of america i was totally geeking out this weekend to see the epic adventure of the eternal child hero in the adoreable glasses who is mankind's only hope. sarah palin. (applause) i saw her in the documentary of her life "the undefeated" also, looking forward to seeing that harry potter movie. apparently that came out this weekend too. they really should have advertised it. (laughter) you know what, you know what, folks, these two would make a great double feature because both movies are about outsiders plucked from

obscurity by an old wizard. (laughter) and both heroes encount erred deer in the forest. that, of course s harry patronus who sarah pillin shot and mounted in her den. (applause) and just like harry potter 7 the undefeated is shattering all records. it may not have made nearly $170 million at the box office but on rotten tomatoes it did receive a perfect score of 0. (applause) that's right. zero. reviewers found zero fault with this movie. now folks, go see it. maybe dress up as your favorite character. i'm going to go as a gotcha question. (laughter) folks, last month when the

federal election commission approved colbert superpac they made it legal for me to accept unlimited donations and talk about it as much as i want on this television show. now several of you have already gone to colbert superpac.com and donated. bringing us ever closer to our goal of infinite dollars. unfortunately-- , unfortunately, folks, we are still infinite away. so to seduce the prudent starting now i am putting the names of people who have given me money on this crawl. there they are. these are the actual names of the actual people who have given me money in the order they have given it to me. remember, according to the fec this is 100% legal and at least 10% ethical. (laughter)

i'm so grateful that i would like to thank the election commissioners by name and i will as soon as they donate. (laughter) of course-- (applause) >> stephen: folk, yeah, good people. cory, martin, jonathan wu, good people. of course some will say that my new cash crawl just proves that this much money in politics is a problem. but is it really? and if so, how much money will it take to make the problem go away. to find out i spoke to people on both sides of this issue. sheila krumholz the executive director of the center for responsive politics a group that advocates transparentsy in campaign finance, fine with me, i'm using my money to develop an invisibility cloak. and on the other side, sean parnell from the center of competitive politics. they support unlimited and untrackable money in politics and i don't have to

tell you what that means to me. seriously, thanks to their work i don't have to tell you anything. i recently sat down with both of these advocates at different times and in different places. jim? >> first up sean parnell of the center for competitive politics. mr. parnell, thanks for sitting down with me today. >> glad to be here. thanks for having me on. >> stephen: should there be any limit on how much money corporations can give to influence our elections or to give directly to campaigns? >> i don't think so. money enables free speech. and if you are going to limit the ability of money to be spent to promote political speech are you necessarily limited political speech. >> stephen: i say if the founding fathers didn't want money in politics, why did they put their faces on our money? (laughter) >> that's a pretty good point. >> stephen: thank you. >> if you look at the first

amendment it says freedom of speech. so we work to ensure that the first five words of the first amendment, congress shall make no law is, in fact, the way that, you know, things go. >> stephen: and what is the rest ruff that sentence? >> there is no rest of the that sentence. >> stephen: what is the rest of the first amendment. >> the first amendment, congress shall make no la law-- uh-- . >> stephen: congress shall make no law. >> congress shall make no law-- or freedom of speech. >> stephen: the speech. >> or the speech. (laughter) >> stephen: the others. >> the others. i did not mem orize the entire first amendment. >> stephen: it's none of your business what the rest of it says. (laughter) less refreshing are the

killjoys over the center for responsive politics and their director sheila krumholz. miss krumholz thank you so much for talking with me today. >> pie pleasure. >> stephen: do you see a problem with money in our current political system. >> it's not that money is good or bad. it's that money is power. and so if it's left unchecked, its its left unscrutinized it has greater power to skew policy away from the public interest. >> it sounds like you think that hidden money taints politics. >> i think hidden money definitely taints politics. >> how do you hope to address the taint. >> by encouraging disclosure of cricks going to the often shadowy groups. >> stephen: so you want to shine a light on that. >> yes. >> stephen: okay. i expose my taint to sean and's proved of what he saw. >> i'm going to list some things that i'm thinking of spending my superpac money on.

>> okay. >> stephen: and you tell me if it's legal. >> okay. >> stephen: private jet. >> yes. >> stephen: private jet ski. >> sure. >> stephen: okay. private elephant. >> oh, easily. >> stephen: paying a woman to say she had an affair with my opponent. >> i'm pretty sure illegal. >> stephen: what if it's true. >> oh, well then, you're just-- . >> stephen: paying her to exercise her-- free speech rights. >> yes. probably something you could do. >> stephen: what if it is a female elephant and it-- the admission she had an affair with my opponent. because they can paint with their tongue. >> right, very talented. the question, what exactly would you be paying for. >> stephen: paying for the elephant to admit she had an affair with my opponent. >> well, that raises some very interesting questions outside the world of campaign finance. >> stephen: i know. >> but the general rule is

if you request show that an expenditure is related to advancing the mission of the pac. >> stephen: which is to destroy my opponent. >> which is to destroy your opponent, then yes. >> stephen: excellent. could i sues my pac money to buy thousands of puppies and then offer free puppies to everyone who votes for the candidates you like. >> you cannot give gifts over a certain value to-- . >> stephen: they're just pup eyes, they're not worth that much. >> the best thing to do is give no gifts at all. because then there is no question about whether there is some kind of quid pro quo. >> stephen: so nothing. >> remove the concern. >> stephen: i got to do something. you can get rid of the puppies? just-- i don't know, get rid of them. they have to go. put them in a sack i don't-- just drop them off a causeway or something. that's not me, that's her. (laughter)

don't cry. are you happy? (applause) >> there are better ways for to you spend your-- (laughter) >> stephen: don't, stop them, don't let them do it. what? (applause) fine with mr. parnell is there any evidence to suggest that corporate contributions affect how a politician acts or votes? >> not really. it just seems so sad that people think so little of

human nature that they think that money could possibly be a corrupting influence in our politics. >> i agree. >> stephen: because corporate money is just like any other money. it doesn't really influence behavior. >> generally not, no. >> stephen: let's drink to that. (laughter) that tastes like-- we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) ...was it something big? ...or something small? ...something old?

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>> stephen: welcome back. nation, we all know it is no secret and i said it many, many times that the media is liberal. not how headlines always start on the left? and any time a conservative gets in trouble like rupert murdoch, owner of news corporate and rumor has it the world's largest human zoo, the liberal media starts circling. this is blood in the water.

>> shark, shark. shark, shark, shark. shark. murdoch's british tabloid-- tabloid "news of the world" illegally hacked into the voice-mails of celebrity, murder victims and soldier's families in a disgraceful invasion of privacy. or as the british saylorees. so murdoch shut down "news of the world" and for some reason the media continued to talk about this piffle. >> former chief executive of news international rebekah brook was arrested. >> there have been ten arrests so far. >> there an fbi investigation ongoing. the sec may investigate. there are people calling for murdoch to be up in front of congress. >> the firestorm engulfing two of britain's top cops and still threatening even the prime minister david cameron. >> head of scotland yard stepped down amid public outrage yesterday. >> stephen: big deal. who cares if the head of scotland yard resigns.

why is scotland yard policing england anyway? call me when the head of england yard resigns. that's news. now thankfully, folks, there is a voice of reason out there. boston friend steve doocy who last friday blew the lid back on to this story with some pr guy who may or may not be employed by rupert murdoch. jimmy, pitch me off a deuce. >> what do you make of what this particular hacking scandal with the news of the world. >> the "news of the world" is a hacking scandal t can't be denied but the issue really is why are so many people piling on at this point. >> avenue's got some serious problems in this country right now. we are teetering on default with. what do they do. they talk about this. >> we know it is a hacking scandal. shouldn't we get beyond it and really deal with the issue of hacking? i mean citicorp has been hacked into. bank of america has been hacked into. i think any of the same kind of attention for hacking that took place less than a year ago that news corp. is

getting today. >> righ >> sthen: right. those bank files were hacked and news corporate hack mood people's phones. they're both victims of being in the same sentence with the word "hack" (laughter) (cheers and applause) >> stephen: and focusing on murdoch just obscures all the other big hacking news out there. cold and flu season is coming. that's going to lead to hacking. cabdrivers used to be called hacks. why does no one use that word any more? and if really want to talk about hacks it, what about these people? where is that story? (cheers and applause) so move on media monsters this story is done. we'll be right back. impressive resume.

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your son rip is on line toot. [ male announcer ] try gas-x. powerful relief from pressure and bloating in a fast-acting chewable. gas-x. pressure's off. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome back. my guest tonight is here to talk about the world's newest country south sudan. great. now i got to throw out all my clothes. please welcome john prendergast. (cheers and applause)

hey, mr. prebder-- prendergast. sit is down. sir? let's give the people your cv. it is quitism press &ive. besides being the author of such books as unlikely brother, are you also a human rights advo kachlt you worked for peace in africa for over 25 years. you're co-founder of the enough project. which is an issue to end genocide and crimes against human knit africa. and your group helped push the referendum that lead to the creation of south sudan. okay. anything impressive? (laughter) how does a new country come into existence? do two old countries love each other very much and then give each other a special hug? what-- how did this happen? >> there wasn't enough love, actually, stephen. they fought for five decades.

>> stephen: north and south sudan. >> and the southerners basically after having been enslaved and bombed and colonized for centuries, they decided enough is enough. we want to have our own state so they fought these successive wars against the north. finally won their right to independence. held the vote in january. voted 99% in favor of independence. and last weekend they became the latest country to become-- . >> stephen: literally last weekend they became a new country. >> that's right. >> stephen: and rand mcnally went cha ching. >> yeah. he's been very lonely, there was montenegro about a decade okay. it hasn't been a new country so this is really up rand mcnally's ally. >> stephen: these are americans in the audience so geography isn't their strong suit so let's show the people where this country is. this is africa as i remember. there is sudan and boom. south sudan. down there. (cheers and applause)

now jimmy can we throw the next-- throw up the flag there. this next image is the new flag of south sudan which we've got digitally rippling there. and this is actually one of the few copies of their flag that is in the united states right now. (cheers and applause) how does-- how does a new flag get decided? >> well, it's amazing. the green is for the agriculture potential. the red for the blood that people gave to get the new country. black actually for the african people. whether you is the nile river and this star is for the unity of all the people to come together for this new state. >> stephen: and who makes the decision that this is the flag? >> some flag decision guy. i don't really-- . >> stephen: wow. (laughter) >> stephen: that sounds like a job that drunlt last long. >> that was it. >> stephen: if i was the flag decision guy i would be like, i haven't made up my

mind yet. keep the checks coming. now what kind of success do you think south sudan has a chance of having? because they've got something called the oil perf. >> the resource curse, here is this country that has been born, very poor one of the poorest countries in the world, very little medical care, no education but they got huge reserves of oil. but what that often means for a new country is that corruption follows very quickly. so everybody gets their hand in the cookie jar, turns out government becomes then a feeding frenzy for who gets to have a cut of that. and as opposed to building a state that can actually take care of the needs of people. >> stephen: exactly. like the unites states where money and corruption has nothing to do with our governors. (laughter) >> who really should get credit for a ending that fight and making the opportunity for this country to come into existence? >> the south sudan ease fought and then they pushed

for a peace deal that would give them the chance to vote. but there is no question that america as the country that has the most influence in sudan played a major role in ensuring that that peace deal actually came to fruition and gave the southerners a chance to vote for independence rz and who was the president in office when that was achieved. >> that would be president bush. >> stephen: give it right up here, baby, right up here. >> all right. >> stephen: let's mark that down in the history book. and baby, south sudan, name them george. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. >> stephen: john prendergast. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] at nissan, we test the altima's durability

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>> stephen: thank you very much. that is it for the report. join me tomorrow for an exciting new episode unless this is a thursday. i can't be sure what day it is because i prerecorded all of these episodes in october